Haifa to build biotech park

Article on GLOBES [online] March 30, 2009
By Gali Weinreb

Haifa Economic Corp expects to invest $1.5 billion in the new park over five years.

Haifa municipality-owned Haifa Economic Corporation plans to build a biotechnology park adjacent to Matam High-Tech Park at the southern entrance to the city. The company expects to invest $1.5 billion in the new park over five years.

The biotechnology park will be built on a 30-dunam (7.5-acre) site jointly owned by Haifa Economic Corporation and Property and Building Ltd. (TASE: PTBL). Haifa Economic Corporation intends to buy out Property and Building.

Research At Hi Tech Lab

Haifa is considered a focal point of Israel's biomedical industry, especially the medical device sector. IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) has a unit there that handles, among other things, healthcare. Technion Entrepreneurial Incubator Co. Ltd. (TEIC), which also supports biomedical start-ups, operates out of Matam.

Haifa Economic Corporation CEO Avi Feferkorn is in charge of the biotechnology park project.

"Globes": Is it possible to find tenants at reasonable prices for the biotech park during the current slump?

Feferkorn: "We conducted a large market survey, from which we concluded that there is sufficient demand for the biotech park. Half of biomedical start-ups are located north of Hadera.

"There is a real crisis now, so it is very cost-effective to build now, and market the biotech park in a few years, after the recovery. We have all the money we need to move forward on construction, so there is no need to raise capital or obtain loans."